This is where I share my kitchen adventures; a place where I can plan and celebrate my culinary exploits.

Sunday, 7 April 2013

Simple flat bread with cracked black pepper

One of the challenges when baking flat breads is keeping the things flat during the baking process. Recipes advise pricking them all over in order to avoid big bubbles of trapped air forming. I have an ancient docker which does this job beautifully. I do have a modern plastic effort too but this makes larger holes and fewer of them. For me it's the old one I choose every time.

For these flat breads you will need'
500g of strong white flour
300g of water
50ml of good olive oil plus more for brushing
7g of fast action yeast
10g of salt
10g of cracked black pepper, optional

Begin by making the dough, bring all the ingredients together to make a soft dough and knead for 5 minutes. Leave to rise until doubled in size. heat the oven to 200C and prepare 2 large baking sheets. Break off 80g pieces of dough, I usually bake 4 at a time 2 on each tray. The remaining dough can either be kept in the fridge for up to 3 days, frozen or simply used up baking batches of flat breads. Take an 80g piece of dough and roll out to form a long lozenge shape, roll out to a thickness of about a pound coin. Using whatever tool you have to hand, dock the lozenge of dough with as many small holes as you can manage, place on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. They should be a rich golden brown when baked, and crisp up a little on cooling. Keep an eye on them as you cook them in order to avoid over-baking. It's better to cook the flat breads at a lower temperature for longer than to cook them at too high a temperature.

These flat breads are the perfect thing broken into shards to dunk into Camembert fondue. Make sure you buy a Camembert that is in a box that has staples, the few that don't and these days there are only few, will spring open in the oven and you will have an oozy mess. Place the Camembert on an oven proof dish, pierce the top with a knife and insert thin slivers of garlic. Dribble a little olive oil on the top and finally sprinkle on a few herbs of choice, this time I used lemon thyme. bake in a hot oven, 200C for 15 minutes until the whole of the center of the cheese is molten. Serve directly with flat breads.

Hello Julie, thank you so much for pointing out the ingredients faux pas, that's the second time in just a few days! It was a bit of a frantic weekend, offered as an explanation rather than an excuse, but really I must be more careful. The docker is certainly old and could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands, I agree, but as a tool for baking it's brilliant. Best wishes Tôbi

These look wonderful. Cheers for sharing this recipe. We love crackers and flatbreads and at the end of a long day out in the garden something simple is often all that we want and crackers/flabread and some salad etc. is a great go-to simple meal.